37 



pest of the orchard, garden, and hot-house, and has been allowed 

 to spread to an alarming extent in orchards in this State." 



Upon a considerable acreage of land planted with damson 

 trees, red spiders were so numerous that the leaves were 

 completely bronzed and the fruit dropped. The under sides of 

 the leaves were swarming with these mites in all stages, which 

 were sucking out their juices. Fine webs covered the whole. 



Peach trees suffer much from red spiders, and the already 

 most precarious crops of this fruit are frequently seriously 

 affected by it. 



DESCRIPTION AND LIFE HISTORY. 



The red spider, a species of the spinning mites, Trombidiince, 

 is only just perceptible with the naked eye. (Fig. 3, Plate VI.) It 

 is not always red. In some stages of its life, and especially upon 

 some kind of food, it is greenish with brown marks upon it, or 

 sometimes it is dark red or bright red. In its perfect form the 

 mite has eight legs whose claws are furnished with hairs, or 

 bristles, surmounted by a globular tip, said to be for the purpose 

 of web-spinning. It has an elaborate barbed sucking apparatus. 

 When the mites come first from the eggs they have only six 

 legs. After a time a change, or moult, takes place, and the 

 mite acquires the full complement of eight legs. Perfect insects, 

 male and female, imperfect six- legged mites, together with eggs, 

 can 'be seen collected beneath the webs. The eggs are colourless 

 and ova'. 



Reproduction goes on throughout the summer and the mites 

 spread from leaf to leaf. They hibernate as perfect mites in 

 the folds and rings of the rind, in the chinks of the bark, and 

 under the smallest mossy and lichenous growths, as well as under 

 the dead rind, upon leaves and in the cracks of stakes used for 

 supports. They may be found in quantities during the winter 

 by close and careful examination under the skin of gooseberry 

 bushes, and upon damson trees that have been infested in the 

 previous summer. 



It has been remarked by some observers that these mites 

 hibernate also under stones and clods. This, no doubt, occurs 

 in certain circumstances, as, for instance, in the case of infested 

 hop plants which, as is well known, are cut down close to the 

 ground by the middle of September, so that the mites cannot 

 be continued and carried on throughout the winter upon the 

 plants. They probably escape into the earth from the withered 

 leaves upon the bines which are not collected from the hop 

 gardens until October or November. 



This would seem not to be a safe and sure harbour of refuge, 

 especially in wet winters, and red spiders object entirely to 

 moisture, for it is found that hop plants are not continuously 

 attacked like gooseberry bushes and damson trees, and several 

 seasons frequently elapse without a sign of injury from this 

 cause. 



